When the exterior of your facility is clean and tidy, it doesn’t just appeal to guests who are being more vigilant about cleanliness – it also deters pests looking to enter the building. Colder weather is coming and pests will be looking for warm places to hide. Ensure that any trees or shrubs are cut back a few feet from the sides of the building, seal any cracks in your concrete, and remove any stagnant water near your facility as it can help pests breed. Have your staff check the restaurant’s entrances and exterior walls regularly for signs that pests are gathering or looking for entry points. In your restaurant, is there a stark division between food preparation areas and the areas where staff store and access their personal belongings? These items can introduce pathogens to your food preparation areas. To minimize contamination risk, make sure all personal electronics, clothing, and even items used on the job, such as uniforms, are stored in a room away from food. Employees should access these items on breaks only, and with thorough handwashing afterwards. A moist, warm environment like your kitchen – particularly in the summer – can lead to the buildup of moisture and grease around your facility, which can, in turn, create mold contamination risks and increase the likelihood of workplace accidents. Hospitality and food safety specialist Dhruv Kishore Bole advises operators to ensure proper ventilation, schedule deep cleaning tasks at regular intervals and to have the hood and ducts cleaned by an outside vendor at least once every three of four months to prevent the accumulation of grease and minimize fire hazards. As careful as your kitchen team may be about wiping up regularly, if they use rags that aren’t washed, sanitized and/or replaced frequently enough, they run the risk of spreading pathogens around your facility and potentially contaminating food. Warm kitchens are especially effective breeding grounds for bacteria. Make sure your cleaning rags are replaced or washed daily and that between uses, you store wet reusable cloths in a container with sanitizer at the required concentration. As the weather cools, rodents will be seeking shelter in warmer environments like your kitchen and storage areas. If you have put off regular maintenance and repairs in recent months, now is a good time to check your facility for cracks and crevices where pests might enter and to trim any vegetation surrounding your facility that could provide a shelter for them. If you find potential entry points, seal them with caulk or weather foam – as opposed to a less-permanent or half-baked solution that might alert a health inspector to a problem. Poorly maintained appliances aren’t just energy drains but also food safety hazards – and if you aren’t using up-to-date technology to monitor your equipment right now, ensure you are manually checking it daily for signs of malfunction. The walk-in cooler, for example, is among the top sources of food inspection violations. Monitor your cooler’s working order by confirming there is no difference between the temperature of the air in the cooler and the food being stored. Look for traces of mold and ensure the door closes securely. Check for the build-up of grease on the exhaust fan, as well as any water dripping from it, which can pose a food contamination risk. In a year of many extremes, extreme weather has become way of life for many parts of the U.S. this summer. From droughts to fires to floods, these events have a ripple effect on the food supply. Food Safety Magazine reports that rising temperatures alone may increase infections by food- and waterborne pathogens, push plant pests into new areas and potentially result in greater use of pesticides, increase the uptake of toxic metals in staple crops, make plants more susceptible to fungal infections, and expand the presence of algal blooms that threaten seafood safety. All told, the current situation requires foodservice operators to have a reliable means of monitoring new potential hazards and adapting the menu accordingly. Your inventory needs a lot of workhorse ingredients these days – and it’s even better if those ingredients are shelf-stable for long periods or can otherwise deter the growth of bacteria and mold. Using a food dehydrator or your oven to incorporate some dried foods onto your menu can help, while also allowing you to find uses for excess fruits and vegetables you may have on hand toward the end of summer and into autumn. Just ensure that you treat fruits with an acidic solution like lemon juice and water beforehand (and blanch vegetables in a similar solution) to prevent the growth of bacteria while drying. Penn State Extension also advises that any unpeeled or uncovered produce be heated in the oven at 160°F for 30 minutes or chilled in the freezer at 0°F or below for 48 hours. Once you have packed dried items into air-tight containers, monitor them for condensation, which would indicate that further drying is needed. The intense heat people are experiencing in many parts of the country this summer, along with ongoing labor shortages and supply chain challenges, require some extra vigilance when to comes to food safety. Trucks may be taking longer to get foods to their destinations, providing more opportunities for food to be exposed to the temperature danger zone – particularly in record-breaking heat. Take extra care right now in checking deliveries to ensure food is being delivered at safe temperatures, is labeled with expected use-by dates, and shows no evidence of damage or decay (e.g. unsealed packaging or evidence of pests or freezer burn). Also be aware of foods that may be dangerous to eat due to the temperature spikes in parts of the country. As you continue to build business back up after the constraints of the pandemic, you may be feeling the need to cut corners and revert to manual processes that you had been delegating to technology. Food Safety Tech reports that restaurants that had been using operational software to monitor food safety processes may be slipping back to the pen-and-clipboard method in an effort to contain costs on tech. Or, those that had been integrating more smart devices into their operation – remote temperature sensors or Bluetooth temperature probes, for example – may be using not-so-smart methods to track food safety practices if and when those devices break or need replacement. While this may be unavoidable in the near term, it just means that some extra precision is required at each stage to ensure your food safety standards aren’t slipping. |
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